Titus 1:5

Set in order the things that are wanting

Church order

I. In every christian community there should be the maintenance of order. Confusion in a Church is a calumny of Christ, and obstructive at once to its peace, power, prosperity, and usefulness.

II. The maintenance of church order may require the ministry of special superintendents. The words elder, bishop, pastor, etc., all refer to the same office--that of overseer. Such a one is to maintain order, not by legislating but by loving; not by the assumption of authority, but by a humble devotion to the spiritual interests of all.

III. The superintendents should be men of distinguished excellence. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Perfecting the order of the Church

1. It noteth what was the special work of an evangelist; namely, that being the companions of the apostles, they were to bring on the work of the Lord to perfection, both by establishing that foundation they had laid, and building on further by their direction where they left off. The office was middle between the apostle and the pastor: the calling was immediate from the apostles, as the apostle was immediate from Christ.

2. Notwithstanding many defects and wants in this Church and those great ones, and that in constitution, for we see their cities were destitute of elders and Church governors; yet was it neither neglected by Paul, nor separated from by Titus as a cage of unclean birds; teaching us not presently to condemn a number and society of men (much less of Churches) for want of some laws or government (for no Church is not wanting in some), if they join together in the profession of truth of doctrine and worship; for so many of the Churches, planted by the apostles themselves, might have been refused for wanting some offices for a time, although they were after supplied.

3. We learn hence, that no Church is hastily brought to any perfection. The apostles themselves, the master builders, with much wisdom and labour, and often in long time, made not such proceedings; but that, had they mot provided labourers to follow them with a diligent hand, all had been lost. Much ado had they to lay the foundation, and prepare matter for the building; and yet this they did, by converting men to the faith and baptizing them; but after this to join them into a public profession of the faith, and constitute visible faces of Churches among them, required more help and labour, and for most part was left to the evangelists. So as the building of God’s house is not unlike to the finishing of other great buildings, with what labour are stones digged out of the earth? with what difficulty depart they from their natural roughness? what sweat and strength is spent ere the mason can smooth them? As it is also with the timber; and yet, after all this, they lie a long time here and there scattered asunder and make no house, till, by the skill of some cunning builder, they be aptly laid, and fastened together in their frame. So every man’s heart, in the natural roughness of it, is as hard as a stone; his will and affections, like the crabbed and knotty oaks, invincibly resisting all the pains of God’s masons and carpenters, till the finger of God in the ministry come and make plain, and smooth way, working in their conversion. (T. Taylor, D. D.)

Titus left in Crete

I. The power left to titus. “I left thee”--I, Paul, an apostle of Christ.

II. The use and exercise of this power.

1. To set in order things that are wanting.

2. To ordain elders in every city.

III. The limitation of these acts. “As I had appointed thee.” Titus must do nothing but according to commission, and by special direction. (W. Burkitt, M. A.)

Ministers as moral leaders

I. That ministers have special work as well as general. Ii. That the work of the best of us needs revision by others. “Set in order,” lit., “revise, make straight.”

III. That every company of christians should have a leader or overseer. “Elders in every city,” is suggestive of the widespread influence of the gospel in Crete, which was famous for its cities. Homer, in one place mentions, that the island had a hundred cities, and in another ninety. (F. Wagstaff.)

Ordain elders in every city

An embertide sermon

Our Lord Himself is the sole source and origin of all ministerial power. He is the Head of the Church--none can take office in the Church except with His authorisation; He is our great High Priest--none can serve under Him, unless by His appointment; He is our King--none can bear rule in His kingdom, except they hold His commission. This ministerial power our Lord conferred upon His apostles. In the Acts of the Apostles and other parts of the New Testament, we learn how the apostles carried out this commission. Their first act after the Ascension was to admit another to their own ranks. St. Matthias was co-opted into the room of the traitor Judas. After a time the needs of the growing Church required them to appoint subordinate officers, they themselves still retaining the supreme control. These officers were, in the first place, deacons, whose special duty it was to attend to the due distribution of the Church’s alms, but who also, as we learn from the subsequent history of two of them, SS. Stephen and Philip, received authority to preach and to baptize; and in the second place, elders who were appointed to still higher functions, to be pastors of congregations, to feed the flock of God and have the oversight thereof. We read of the elders first in Acts 11:30. The word “elder,” wherever it occur in the New Testament, is a translation of the Greek word “presbuteros,” from which our words “presbyter” and “priest” have come, the latter by contraction. If the word had been left untranslated, as the words “bishop,” “deacon,” and “apostle” were, and appeared as “presbyter” or “priest,” the English reader would have been saved from much perplexity, and much danger of erroneous inferences. Thus the apostles, in order to keep pace with the requirements of the Church, shared, by degrees, their functions with others, admitted others by prayer and the laying on of hands into the sacred ministry. But one prerogative they still retained in their own keeping, that was, the power of ordaining others. Yet if the Church was to be continued, if the promise of Christ was to be fulfilled, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” this power also must be transmitted. And so we find that the college of apostles was gradually enlarged. One there was, St. Paul, who had received the apostolate, with all its prerogatives, directly from heaven. Others, such as St. Barnabas, were also admitted to the apostolic ranks and placed on an equal footing with the original Twelve. And, finally, in the Pastoral Epistles we come to the last link of the chain which connects the apostolic rule of the Church with the episcopal superintendence which followed. As the apostles travelled through the whole known world, and established Churches and ordained clergy in every city to which they came, they found at last that the oversight of all these Christians of whom they were the spiritual fathers had become too much for them. It was felt to be a necessity to place over each Church a local superintendent, who, within a fixed district, should be armed with full apostolical authority--with power to rule the Church, to administer discipline, to ordain clergy. When we open the Pastoral Epistles we find that it was to just such an office that SS. Timothy and Titus were appointed. And history informs us that immediately after the apostles’ times the Christian Church in all parts of the world was governed by bishops, who claimed to be successors of the apostles, and who alone bad the power to ordain, with priests and deacons under them. Why the bishops did not retain for themselves the name of apostles we know not; but probably they thought themselves unworthy to share that title with such eminent saints as those who had been called by Christ to be His original apostles, and therefore they adopted a designation which had less august associations attached to it, having formerly been borne by clergy of the second order. For more than 1,500 years no other form of Church government was known in any part of Christendom. Turn where we will, north or south, east or west, or take any period of history previous to the Reformation, and we can discover no portion of the Church which was not governed by bishops, or where there were not these three orders of ministers. By the good providence of God, in the great crisis of the sixteenth century, we were permitted to retain the ancient organisation of the Christian Church. The Reformation in these islands was the act of the Church itself, which, while it rejected the usurped supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and returned in other respects to the purer faith of primitive times, carefully maintained unimpaired the three Orders of the Ministry. There was no severing of the link which bound us to the men to whom the Great Head of the Church said, “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” What abundant reason have we, clergy and people alike, to be thankful to God for this! We clergy can go about our work with no misgivings as to whether we are indeed ambassadors for Christ or no. We know that in all our ministerial acts He is with us, that He indeed is acting through us, and that our feeble, unworthy efforts to advance His kingdom and glory are backed and supported by an infinite Power which can turn our weakness into strength. And the people, too, should bless and thank God that, through His great goodness towards them, the sixteenth century proved in these islands a true Reformation in religion--not a Revolution, as it did elsewhere; that you belong to the very Church founded by the apostles, and that Church, too, released from medieval corruption, and saved from those debasing modern superstitions into which Roman Christianity has fallen; that you have free access to the means of grace which Christ appointed for His people; that the Sacraments which are generally necessary to salvation are here duly ministered according to God’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite for the same; that you have a ministry which can speak to you in Christ’s name, and hear to you His message of reconciliation; for they have been set apart to their office by Himself--by Him to whom alone all power has been committed in heaven and in earth; that you are “fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.” On a valid ministry depends the very existence of a Church. On a faithful ministry depends the well-being of a Church. And how largely does the character of the ministry depends upon the people? How largely is it in the power of the people to assist the bishop in making a choice of fit persons for Holy Orders? I am not now alluding to the direct power the people possess to prevent the ordination of an unworthy man. It is for this express purpose that the Si quis, as it is called, of the candidate is appointed to be read in the parish church previous to the ordination. The name of the candidate is published, and the people are invited to object if they can allege any impediment. And another opportunity of the same kind is given at the ordination itself. I am now alluding specially to your prayers. “Brethren, pray for us,” was the earnest request of St. Paul to the Christians of his day, and surely the successors of the apostles now need no less the prayers and sympathy of their people. (J. G. Carleton, B. D.)

Directions regarding the appointment of elders

1. It is Titus himself who is to appoint these elders throughout the cities in which congregations exist. It is not the congregations that are to elect the overseers, subject to the approval of the apostle’s delegate; still less that he is to ordain any one whom they may elect. The full responsibility of each appointment rests with him. Anything like popular election of the ministers is not only not suggested, it is by implication entirely excluded.

2. In making each appointment Titus is to consider the congregation. He is to look carefully to the reputation which the man of his choice bears among his fellow Christians. A man in whom the congregation have no confidence, because of the bad repute which attaches to himself or his family, is not to be appointed. In this way the congregation have an indirect veto; for the man to whom they cannot give a good character may not be taken to be set over them.

3. The appointment of Church officers is regarded as imperative: it is on no account to be omitted. And it is not merely an arrangement that is as a rule desirable: it is to be universal. Titus is to go through the congregations “city by city,” and take care that each has its elders or body of elders.

4. As the name itself indicates, these elders are to be taken from the older men among the believers. As a rule they are to be heads of families, who have had experience of life in its manifold relations, and especially who have had experience of ruling a Christian household. That will be some guarantee for their capacity for ruling a Christian congregation.

5. It must be remembered that they are not merely delegates, either of Titus, or of the congregation. The essence of their authority is not that they are the representatives of the body of Christian men and women over whom they are placed. It has a far higher origin. They are “God’s stewards.” It is His household that they direct and administer, and it is from Him that their powers are derived. As God’s agents they have a work to do among their fellow men, through themselves, for Him. As God’s ambassadors they have a message to deliver, good tidings to proclaim, ever the same, and yet ever new. As “God’s stewards” they have treasures to guard with reverent care, treasures to augment by diligent cultivation, treasures to distribute with prudent liberality. (A. Plummer, D. D.)